Berkman Buzz: May 24, 2013

We aim to track the history, promise, and challenges of Internet voting encountered by one of the two successful pioneers in the field: Switzerland. The Swiss case is of great interest to any student of Internet voting as it is to any policy-maker interested in the prospects, pitfalls, and solutions for avoiding the challenges of Internet voting within their respective contexts.

Participating in the National Day of Civic Hacking, 6/1-2? Be sure to hack the DPLA! http://bit.ly/19nsaXI #hackforchange @civichackingday
—Digital Public Library of America (@dpla)

Does raising money to purchase incriminating video represent a new milestone in crowdfunding? Is it a particularly ethically cloudy example of civic crowdfunding? Or just an attention grabbing stunt by [Gawker founder Nick] Denton and crew?

Teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they have in the past, but they are also taking a variety of technical and non-technical steps to manage the privacy of that information. Despite taking these privacy-protective actions, teen social media users do not express a high level of concern about third-parties (such as businesses or advertisers) accessing their data; just 9% say they are “very” concerned.

How Walmart uses consumer purchase history to push shopping lists to mobile app http://bit.ly/Z5Ecnd
—John Deighton (@HBSmktg)

Yesterday, Pew Internet and American Life Project (in collaboration with Berkman) unveiled a brilliant report about “Teens, Social Media, and Privacy.” As a researcher who’s been in the trenches on these topics for a long time now, none of their finding surprised me but it still gives me absolute delight when our data is so beautifully in synch. I want to quickly discuss two important issues that this report raise.

Ghana Decides was an online project which aimed to cover the run up to the then upcoming presidential election of 2012, hoping to "foster a better-informed electorate for free, fair and safe elections," using online social media as their primary tool. An initiative of Blogging Ghana, it built upon this existing community of social media users and enthusiasts in and out of the country. The project ended in January 2013, after the election was completed.

Ghana Decides often faced the difficult task of online advocacy in a country with very low internet coverage, at times working in rural locations without the coverage to post updates. However, they managed to turn this to their advantage.